Traction machines, taken by themselves, and the combination of traction machine and attachment devices, such as for example transport trailers, loading wagons, hay rakes, tedders, mowers, balers, soil cultivation equipment, crop protection sprayers and fertilizer spreaders are highly complex and cost-intensive systems.
It is therefore important that such systems are operated efficiently.
The traction machine and the attachment device adapted to it are usually optimized frequently independently of one another and in different places. In addition, it is not verified if the optimized parameters found for the traction machine and that attachment device in fact lead to an optimization of the operation of the combination of traction machine and the respective attachment device. The optimization of the mode of operation of the traction machine and the attachment device assigned to it separately from one another additionally requires a high level of specialized knowledge of the traction machine driver since he/she has to carry out the essential adjustments such as for example engine, transmission and running gear adjustments on the traction machine and basic adjustments on the attachment device himself/herself, while the machines themselves or the respective available operating instructions support this process only partially.
EP 0 838 141 discloses a system with which the soil tilling device, embodied as a plough, is equipped with a job calculator which via a bus system is coupled to the operating and display unit of the traction machine embodied as tractor. The tractor driver can now specify adjusting parameters for the plough via the operating and display unit. Even by this example it is clearly evident how extensive the special knowledge of the operator has to be since with such systems the operator is required to specify adjusting parameters for both the traction vehicle and also the attachment device.